Is your WLAN ready for voice?

Many of today's data collection devices are now being shipped with Voice-over IP (VoIP) technology to improve collaboration, responsiveness, and cost savings, bringing even greater value to your network and IT investments. These advancements in technology can sometimes put strains on your existing Wireless LAN infrastructure, so how do you know if your network is ready for Voice?

Voice-over IP allows your workers to audibly communicate with other people on the network, and in many instances, to people outside the network. Because your workers do not stay in one spot while working, you have make sure that you have complete coverage throughout your facility so when workers roam from one access point to another, calls are not dropped and the quality of service (QoS) of the call is maintained.

Maintain Security

Because of the time sensitivity of VoIP, reauthentication must happen very quickly as a client roams across the campus, so that network security is maintained. A wireless LAN voice client must be able to maintain its security association from one access point to another, even across IP subnets, with as little latency as possible.

Clients for voice over WLAN are evolving, and new requirements must be accounted for. Although 802.11 has proven to be an efficient, cost effective wireless standard, it was not originally designed for devices with limited battery capacity; the 802.11 standard was not focused on extended battery life of an endpoint. This impacts usability for wireless VoIP clients, as they have limited battery capacity. A technological evolution of the infrastructure is required to accommodate these clients.

Deployment

Deploying a WLAN that will support voice applications should ensure the following key capabilities are present in the infrastructure and the clients:

QoS priority maintained end-to-end throughout the network infrastructure, including over-the-air (from the Access Point to wireless client) and QoS Call Admission Control to ensure that there is sufficient capacity to provide the required QoS Priority.
The ability to differentiate and optimize the flow of voice traffic to increase transmission reliability.
Highly secure authentication and encryption that doesn't compromise voice quality.
Seamless, low-latency mobility across Layer 2 and Layer 3 boundaries without compromising security.
Proper WLAN instrumentation to proactively identify performance issues and isolate them during the diagnosis of VoIP problems.
Centralized management of the RF environment to ensure pervasive coverage, network capacity and availability.
Support for extending voice end point talk time battery life.

Is your WLAN ready for voice?

Maintain Security

Deployment

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